Davis, who has been a commissioner for 22 years, is accused of malfeasance and misfeasance for her role in signing a memo extending payments of retired port Chief Executive Mic Dinsmore's $339,841 salary by up to one year past his retirement date.

Mertel ruled that the allegations of wrongful conduct in office are legally and factually sufficient to merit allowing the petition to continue.

"These are sad things when public officials are called to answer to charges like these," Mertel said after issuing his decision, which allows the petition's charges to be condensed into a 200-word ballot synopsis to be reviewed by his court Thursday.

"Maybe it is well justified, maybe it isn't, but obviously the voters will have to answer that."

Davis was represented in court by lawyer Suzanne Thomas, who disputed the judge's decision and said after the hearing that "the Supreme Court has full authority to overturn this."

Davis will have 15 days after the Thursday hearing to file her appeal to the state's high court.

If she files the appeal and is not successful in reversing Mertel's decision, then the petition's filer -- Renton resident Chris Clifford, a schoolteacher -- would need to collect 149,124 signatures to put it on a ballot.

"The port president can only sign documents with the majority having voted and supported that," Clifford argued before the court, referring to port commission bylaws.

"In this case, the president said, 'I signed it, but I knew it would have to go before a vote ... I put the cart before the horse, but I know the horse will come in sometime.' "

Clifford pointed out that Davis is "the only commissioner sitting on the commission at this time who was there when these bylaws were adopted in 1993. I believe her when she says I do know better, but she didn't behave that way."

Thomas argued that Clifford's failure to cite relevant statute and bylaws in his recall petition was reason enough to dismiss it, but Mertel said that citizen actions are "inartfully drawn" by their nature but must still be considered.

And, Thomas said, "There simply has been no transfer of monies to Mr. Dinsmore, pure and simple." Mertel said he was troubled by Thomas' assertion that there was not misconduct on Davis' part because the money was not paid to Dinsmore.

Citing prior case law, Mertel said that it has been found by other courts that "you can infer intent by conduct." Davis' conduct, he said, is proven in part by the existence of the memo.

The port's human resources department had begun preparing the payout, calculated as $296,000, before it was brought to the attention of new Chief Executive Tay Yoshitani, who took the helm in March.

Yoshitani began pulling commissioners into private briefings with General Counsel Craig Watson, only to find that three other commissioners -- President John Creighton, Vice President Lloyd Hara and Secretary Alec Fisken -- said they had no recollection of discussing the payout or agreeing to it.

Notes said to be taken by Dinsmore after the closed-door executive sessions of Jan. 10 and June 8, 2006, described the commissioners agreeing to the payout. Other notes said to be taken by Creighton on Jan. 10, his first meeting as a commissioner, make no mention of the subject.

Commissioner Bob Edwards was described in Dinsmore's handwritten notes as having led the discussions that led to an agreement. Edwards says he can recall some of the discussions, but not the agreement.

The Oct. 10, 2006, memo signed by Davis and Dinsmore was placed in Dinsmore's personnel file, where a human resources manager found it and began drafting the compensation package.

The memo extended Dinsmore's "transition benefits," or payment of his salary, until the end of 2007 or mid-March 2008, based on a severance policy designed to compensate employees who had been fired or whose jobs had been eliminated.

That severance policy allows two weeks of salary to be paid to an employee for each year of their service; in Dinsmore's case, though he left voluntarily, that would mean 40 weeks pay ($260,000), plus adjustments for sick leave (about $36,000).

The full commission later unanimously voted not to make any payments to Dinsmore, one day after Dinsmore withdrew his request for the money.

Clifford said Davis should have known better.

"It was a gift of public funds, and they got caught," Clifford has said in support of his petition's allegations that Davis is guilty of misfeasance and malfeasance in office -- defined by Washington state law as "any wrongful conduct that affects, interrupts or interferes with the performance of official duty."

Davis' declaration stated that she "had no intention of acting secretly or unilaterally, and I stress, I did not do so."